


Unsaid

by 221b_hound



Series: Unkissed [38]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Brother-Sister Relationships, Childhood Trauma, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, John's past, M/M, Nightmares, Past Domestic Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-24
Updated: 2015-04-26
Packaged: 2018-03-25 12:48:49
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 4
Words: 11,012
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3811075
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/221b_hound/pseuds/221b_hound
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>John is still having nightmares: about a bird. A recurring nightmare he had when he was very young, and comes back in times of deep stress.</p><p>Sherlock can't read minds, but he is a detective. What he cannot deduce, he can investigate. And so he goes to Harry Watson, prepared to do anything, even show his vulnerabilities, if it will help the man he loves.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

The first time John Watson felt he’d failed, he was almost four years old, and he brought home the tiny chick he’d found cheeping weakly under a tree. He knew he was too small to climb up the tree to return it to its nest, and there was that big tabby cat on the wall nearby looking at the baby bird with greedy interest. John didn’t like the idea of the cat eating a helpless baby bird, so he gathered the chick up in his handkerchief, tucked the little thing carefully inside his jumper and took it all the way up three flights of stairs (the lift of the council flats smelled funny again) and inside to his mum.

Despite putting the chick into a little box lined with cotton wool, and trying to feed it water with a dropper, the bird died.

John cried for ages. He demanded to know why the chick had died.

“We just didn’t know what to do for it, love,” said his mum, who had been six months now without a mysterious black eye or overlapping blotching bruises on her arms or legs, “Sometimes it just can’t be helped.”

John decided right then he would find out how to help baby birds so if he ever found another one, it would live and grow big and feathery and get pretty wings instead of those tiny fried-chicken-wing things, and fly away into the beautiful, wide-open sky, like birds should do.

*

Sherlock woke in the darkness to the sound of a muted whimper. A little-boy cry of distress, a small-child voice saying ‘no’, but issuing from the sleeping man beside him.

“No,” John said in a voice high and constricted with a heartbreaking sob, “No. No. Don’t hurt her. Don’t.”

John’s face was crumpled up, too, and his hands were folded up over his chest, like he was cupping something fragile in them, against his heart.

“No, no, nononono,” he cried in that tiny voice.

“Sshh, John,” said Sherlock softly, pressing himself along John’s side, placing his hand over John’s folded ones, “Sshh, you’re home.”

John didn’t stop whimpering, so deeply immersed was he in the nightmare.

Carefully, Sherlock rubbed his thumb against John’s hands. “Wake up, John,” he said, “Wake up, now. It’s all right.”

John gasped as his eyes flew open, but they remained unfocused. “Don’t hurt her,” the child-John begged again.

“It’s all right, John, sshh, now. Wake up.”

“The bird?” John asked in that little voice.

“The bird’s fine,” said Sherlock, supposing that was what John thought he was holding in his hands.

John drew a shaky breath, and spoke in a more normal voice. “Pardon?” He blinked rapidly, finally waking up.

“You were dreaming,” said Sherlock softly, “About a bird.”

“A bird?”

“You asked me about a bird.”

“Oh.” John frowned. “Yeah. That’s right. A bird.”

Sherlock very kindly did not point out that John was sleep- and nightmare-fuddled and was making no sense.

John gave a kind of shudder and flexed his hands before pushing his palms against his face. “That damned bird. I used to have nightmares about it all the time when I was little.” He pulled his hands away again and stretched, easing stress out of his muscles and bones. “Sorry I woke you, sweetpea.”

“It’s fine,” said Sherlock, because of course it was.

John lay on his back in their bed. Dim light came in through the gap in the curtain, painting everything strangely silver-grey and ink-black, and he looked at the ceiling.

Sherlock moved in close alongside and kissed John’s shoulder; rested his palm on John’s closest hip, then slid it across John’s stomach to the other. Kissed John’s shoulder again, then brushed his nose against John’s neck. And he waited.

“When I was little, I used to dream about a baby bird, and I’d wake up crying because it died. I had that dream for years and years. I don’t really know how it started, but it was always the same. A big… _thing_ – I don’t know what it was, but it was loud and dark and angry – was trying to hurt the bird, and I’d pick it up and open a door in my chest and put it inside. It went away when I hit my teens, but I had it again when Dad and then Mum were sick. I haven’t had it for a long time.”

Sherlock kissed John’s shoulder again, and softly rubbed John’s skin with his fingertips, but said nothing.

“I think… I’m pretty sure… that _thing_ is supposed to be my father. My birth father, I mean.” John shook his head, trying to clear it of the cobwebs clinging to his thoughts. “I don’t remember him really, from back then. He wasn’t around a lot. Mum left him when Harry and I were very young. Harry’s two years older, so she remembers him better from those days, though there was that time he…” John’s breath caught and he made himself exhale slowly again, “He showed up unexpectedly when Dad was out.”

John took another breath and then eased it out between his teeth. “I don’t talk about him. I’m not deliberately hiding things from you. I just…”

Sherlock kissed John’s shoulder again. “It’s all right,” he said again, because from the tension in John’s body, it _needed_ saying again, “I won’t ask. If and when you’re ready, I’ll be here.”

John turned his head a little to nuzzle against Sherlock’s brow. “His name is Oliver Sacker,” he offered.

Sherlock’s lips quirked in a smile against John’s skin. “Your real name is John _Sacker_?”

John flinched violently away from him. “No,” he snapped, “It fucking isn’t.”

Sherlock, shocked, reached an apologetic hand for John. “I’m sorry. Of course it isn’t. You’re John Watson.”

John blinked at the dismay on Sherlock’s face; looked at the beseeching hand. Clasped it. “I’m John Holmes-Watson,” he said, trying to smile, pressing Sherlock’s hand to his diaphragm, “I changed my name again this year.”

Sherlock lifted John’s hand and kissed his knuckles. “I’m an idiot. Forgive me.”

“Already done,” John ‘s pained smile became even more grimace-like, “It’s not like I explained myself, and as you keep telling me, you can’t read minds. So. For clarity. Oliver Sacker is a violent, vile, miserable fuckbucket, and I started using Watson even before Mum married Dad. I changed my name by deed poll as soon I was legally allowed to without that prick’s consent, at 16.” He tugged slightly on Sherlock’s hand, and Sherlock followed the tug to lie alongside his husband once more. “Let’s not talk about him now. Some other time when it’s not the middle of the night and I don’t have work in the morning.”

“All right.” Sherlock arranged them so that John was tucked in close, head under Sherlock’s chin. Sherlock’s hand rested on John’s hip again. But John remained tense, and this close, Sherlock could feel the tiny judders, after-effects of the nightmare and his reaction to the name Sacker, running through John’s limbs. Sherlock shifted his hand a fraction, to pet John’s stomach, and very softly he began to sing, “ _Hold me close, don’t let me go_ …”

The words dried up when he realised that John was looking at him with a confused frown, as though John had never before realised Sherlock was soothing him in the exact way his mother used to.

“Would you rather I didn’t?” Sherlock asked timidly, worried he’d unintentionally upset John again. That didn’t seem to be the case, but John was not always easy to read.

John’s frown turned thoughtful and then into a quizzical smile. “No. I like it. Keep going.” And he curled inward, cuddling up close to Sherlock, who resumed singing and gently patting John’s skin. He felt John relax in his arms; go soft and sleepy and pliant and then into the placid stillness of sleep.

Sherlock kept singing for a few minutes afterwards, finding the ritual as soothing to himself as it was to John: but he was thinking about John’s nightmares – and the ill-reputed Oliver Sacker.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sherlock has coffee with Harry. He bares his soul, and learns important things.

John’s mum started calling him her little man, her _man of the house_ , within months of leaving Oliver Sacker. Even though John was just a kid, only four years old; even though Harry was two years older and longing to take on that mantle of looking after her mum and baby brother. John, already a solemn, quiet boy, took the affectionate, semi-joking responsibility seriously. In grave tones he would reply, “I’ll look after you and Harry, Mummy.”

At other times, he would clamber up into her bed at night when he woke from the bird dream, but then pat _her_ hair and kiss _her_ face and say, “I’ll keep the bad thing away”, though he was the one afraid and crying, and she’d hold him and sing that _holding close_ song and rub his tummy until the ache went away.

John and Harry learned to look after themselves young, because their mum had to work to support them, and got very tired and she cried a lot sometimes. So John did his share of the chores, mostly without whining, and learned how to make toast and cheese in the grill, and beans on potatoes that he cooked in the microwave, and he only burnt himself sometimes, and he would bite his lip and not cry because Mummy cried when he cried, but later he might get a tummy ache, and she would sing to him and pat his poor tum until he felt better.

He had to stand on a footstool to reach the sink to dry the dishes when he was five. His little hands dropped a glass once. It shattered on the sink and he stood there, biting his lip, tears standing out in his big blue eyes, the blood from the cut on his finger dripping onto the wet dishes that would have to be washed again. Harry had to wrap his hand up in a tea towel and take him next door to Mrs Diambu, who was a nurse and babysat them sometimes, to put a plaster on because Mummy was at the shops around the corner buying fish and chips for tea. (John was fascinated by Mrs Diambu and her job and asked her all the time about about plasters and cuts and taking temperatures and bruises and burns and operations and _everything_.)

John hated when Harry tried to help him with his chores. He was the Little Man of the House – Mummy said so – and he was stubborn and a bit proud, and he wanted to do it _himself_.

John was as calm as Harry was wild; as studious as she was unscholarly. They fought a lot. Harry was bossy and John was stubborn, but they both shut right up if Mum started shouting, because Mummy would usually cry after shouting, and everyone hated that.

Everything changed after Mummy met Mr Watson, when John was five and a half. Mr Watson made everyone laugh, and John didn’t have to be the Little Man of the House any more, which he missed a bit, but it was also a bit of a relief. Being the Little Man of the House was hard.

When John asked big, friendly Mr Watson (who laughed and made Mummy laugh and smelled like tobacco and engine oil and the outdoors) if he might let John call him Daddy – because he didn’t have one and he thought it might be nice to have a proper Dad – Mr Watson scooped the little boy up in his arms and grinned and said he’d be very honoured to be John and Harry’s daddy, if that’s what they wanted.

Harry had stared at the big man and put her hands on her hips and said, “If you ever do anything bad to my Mum I’m going to wallop you.” Mr Watson agreed that this was a fair thing, and after that he was Daddy _forever_. When Mum and Dad got married, John, nearly seven, was the best man and Harry was bridesmaid for their mum, who wore a pretty gold and sapphire brooch that matched her eyes.

John sometimes still had the bird dream, and sometimes still clambered into Mum and Dad’s bed to hug his mum and tell her, “I’ll look after you, Mummy.” But life was easier and happier for years and years and years after, apart from that one time

The day Oliver Sacker found them.

*

After the disrupted sleep, John struggled to wake in the morning and ended up running out of the flat, on the cusp of late for his shift at the hospital. He didn’t mention the dream, or Sacker.

Sherlock sat on the sofa and brooded a while after John left. Nobody called with any cases. Mrs Hudson didn’t interrupt with the morning mail. No emails came through on either blog or on any of their personal emails.

Sherlock spent his brooding time thinking about the fact that he couldn’t read minds, and that half his job was not deduction but investigation: uncovering data.

He decided to uncover data.

He phoned Harry Watson.

They met at a small coffee shop in South Croydon, near where Harry worked, Harry full of curiosity, because her brother’s princessy husband never did this. He never paid social calls.

“It isn’t a social call,” replied Sherlock to the unasked question as Harry shovelled sugar into her coffee.

“Git,” said Harry, emptying a fifth spoonful into the cup, “I can’t believe John loves how you do that. It’s really fucking irritating.”

Sherlock fell silent and poked at his own coffee with a spoon, looking into the swirling darkness, mouth drawing into a tight moue.

“Sorry,” said Harry, “I’m a bitch, can’t help myself. What’s up with John, then?”

He looked at her with narrow eyes.

“It’s not a social call,” she pointed out, then paused to slurp her coffee – Sherlock was certain she made the disgusting noise only to annoy him – “And since that prick Milverton’s yesterday’s news, and we’ve only got John in common, and if he was happy you wouldn’t need to see me – what’s up with John?”

Sherlock’s expression altered slightly to a kind of wary approval. “I need to understand some things about his past.”

“He can tell you all that himself if he wants to.”

“I know. But…” Sherlock frowned again and tapped the spoon on the side of the cup, more as an aural distraction. He sighed. “He’s having bad dreams, since the Milverton case. Since his hands were hurt.”

“Those fuckers,” growled Harry, “John told me some copper tossed one of them out of a window. Grand stuff. What’s his name so I can send him flowers?”

“Her name is Sergeant Donovan,” said Sherlock, and smiled as Harry jotted the name down on the back of her hand with a ballpoint pen, “Another of the attackers was stabbed in prison, though I’m not sure you should send Brodny the Slav flowers. He may get the wrong impression.”

“I’ll bake him a cake with a file in it,” said Harry, “Anyway. John’s having bad dreams, you said?”

“Several different ones,” said Sherlock, “But there’s a persistent one about a bird…”

“Shit. The bird dream. That used to make a mess of him when he was little. He woke me up crying about that bloody bird for years when we lived in that crappy council flat and had to share a room. Why on earth would he be having that dream again now?”

“That is what I want to understand,” said Sherlock. “It relates, I believe, to a sense of… inadequacy he has. That he is failing to protect the people that matter in his life.”

Harry grimaced and put her cup down with a clank. “Look, I get you want to know all the gritty facts, but if John hasn’t told you, you’d better give me a damned good reason why I should.”

Sherlock glared at her, and she glared back.

“He _will_ tell me,” Sherlock said through gritted teeth, “But it…” He ground his teeth together and then he looked away. If Harry was half as stubborn as John, she wouldn’t talk, and he needed to know. So he needed to strip away his own defences and give her something _real_ if he was to persuade her.

“It… causes John… it… upsets him. To talk about some things. He finds it difficult. It’s not my knowing that is the problem. It’s the having to _talk_ about it. And some people might think it’s part of the healing process to do that talking, but it _hurts_ him. If I know the facts already, then we can move more quickly to the part where we work together to deal with them. And this thing, however it started, is giving him ongoing, terrible nightmares. Fewer now than straight after what they did to him, but they haven’t stopped. Whether or not he remembers it, he’s waking every night now, crying in his sleep. John is suffering and _I won’t have it_.”

By now, Sherlock had raised his head again, to send a bright-eyed challenge directly into Harry’s gaze, “He struggles with this ridiculous fear of failure he has. He always thinks it’s his fault. Not in here,” he tapped the side of his head, and then over his heart, “In _here_. He is trying to tell me where it comes from, but he doesn’t always know. It’s _hard_ and I want to make it less difficult for him. Anything I know already, he doesn’t have to relive by saying it again, and I know what that means. He’s done that for me.”

_No need to tell her about the photograph Milverton sent, and the relief of not having to explain._

Harry frowned. “It sounds serious.”

Sherlock nodded once, sharply, then his mouth twitched, and the skin around his eyes, minute tells of his distress at John’s distress. “I can't bear to hear him sound so...” – _vulnerable; afraid; brave_ – “…distraught in his sleep. So alone. I want him to know that he is not. There is nothing he could _say_ or _do_ or _be_ that would diminish him to me. I know who John Watson is.”

“Like I said before,” said Harry, her expression too wondering to be truly a smirk, “He's your hero. 

“No. Yes. That’s a ridiculous term. It sounds like a shallow character in a bad book. But John is _real_. John Watson is a real man who has done heroic things and he is... everything. Not perfect, but nevertheless _everything_. I can't give less than everything back. Don't you see? If you tell me now, that's more I can do to help him, the less he must struggle with alone. I will not allow him to suffer one moment longer than I must. But I can’t _deduce_ this. I need _data_. I need to know what happened. I need to know why he thinks the way he does.”

The way Harry looked at him then – knowing and compassionate and infused with doubt – was awful, in what it understood about Sherlock Holmes and the depths of his love. He felt _exposed_. But he could live with that, if it gave him what he needed.

“I don’t know if I can help with the last one. He’s always been a saint, our John. He’s always looked out for everyone, ever since he was small. Mum used to call him her Little Man of the House, but he was already trying to take care of everyone by then.”

“Nevertheless,” said Sherlock tightly, “What can you tell me about the bird nightmare?”

Harry shrugged. “I honestly don’t know where that whole bird thing comes from. He used to wake up crying about the bloody thing; he can’t have been more than four years old. I used to think he meant Mum, but then he said it was a bird he was keeping in his chest. He wasn’t old enough to remember how that useless sack of shit boyfriend of Mum’s used to hit her. The day the fucker raised a hand to me, Mum packed us up and got us out of the house and that whole miserable town and we never went back.” She chewed her lip. “Though… he had that dream a lot later, too, after the fuckwad found us that one time. So maybe the bird was Mum after all.”

“John said Sacker had shown up once, but he wasn’t in the mood to talk about it.”

“Nah, well, John never does talk about that shit, does he?”

“What… shit?”

“The stunts he pulls, that win him medals and stuff. Look at his blog. Nine tenths singing your praises, the other tenth terrible puns. He never writes much about what _he’s_ done. Anyone who didn’t actually know him would assume he was there to hold your coat. I don’t care if modesty is a virtue – that’s too fucking modest.”

“It is a habit of his I’m trying to break,” confessed Sherlock.

“Good luck with that, then,” said Harry sardonically.

“So… what stunt did he pull that day, when Oliver Sacker found you?”

Harry twisted her cup in its saucer by the handle, 45 degrees anticlockwise; 45 degrees clockwise. Anticlockwise again. Clockwise once more. Four times. Then she sighed and pushed the cup away.

“Johnny was maybe a bit over seven? Six or so months after the wedding, I guess. We were really happy, you know, with our new Dad and Mum was sort of glowing all the time. It was great. Then that cuntweasel had to find out about them getting married. I mean, Mum and I didn’t even know where he was, and Mum was pretty sure he didn’t know where we were, and Johnny didn’t even really remember the prick, we don’t think – it’s not like he was home much in those first few years except to bash Mum and take all the housekeeping money. But maybe he spotted a wedding notice or something, or a crony of his did and told him, and thought he could cadge some dosh from us. And so good old Sacker – Sackershit, we used to call him, you know, Sack o’ shit? – came to our place when Dad was at work at the garage, and the next thing, he’s laying into Mum, just like old times. He knocked her across the kitchen, and then he belted into me, so Mum and I were there on the floor, Mum trying to shield me, and there was Johnny, seven bloody years old, screaming at him to leave us alone and pulling on his arm. And Sackershit shoved Johnny into a wall to make him let go.”

Harry’s hands started to shake. Sherlock wondered if he should cover them with his own. If it were John, he would have done, but this was Harry and he didn’t know how it worked with Harry; if she’d welcome it. He didn’t think so.

She clenched her hands into fists, so maybe he was right to have held still.

“Johnny wouldn’t take the hint, of course. He threw himself over Mum and me – like that tiny kid was ever going to be big enough to get between us and him, and he never did grow much bigger,” Harry grimace-grinned as at some old family joke, “And Sacker slapped him across the face and threw him off again, right against the cupboard, poor little beggar. Then that fucking bastard grabbed a kitchen knife and went at Mum. He cut her. Across her back. And fuck me if Johnny doesn’t grab the frying pan right off the stove where Mum was cooking chops for lunch, and belted Sackershit right on the back of the head with it. Hot fat went everywhere, all over that cunt, and that’s when the cops showed up – our neighbour Mrs Gillespie called them when she heard the screaming. First time in my life I was ever grateful for her being a nosy cow.”

Harry took a shuddering breath and looked up at Sherlock. “We all had to go to the hospital, we were so banged up. Mum needed five stitches. Johnny and I had bruises all over us, and Dad kept crying because he hadn’t been there and we got hurt. And Johnny kept apologising to Dad, because he hadn’t stopped a grown man twice his height and four times his age from doing it. You know, when the cops were dragging him away, that fucking Sacker was saying it was all Mum’s own fault, and then he blamed me, and I think Johnny’s the only he didn’t try to pin it on, and bloody John is the only one who decided he'd not tried hard enough. Poor little bastard. And he's still doing that? God. My brother is an idiot."

But said it with such fond exasperation, such despairing pride, like she'd protect him if only she knew how. Sherlock knew just how she felt.

Sherlock narrowed his eyes at her again, reading her. She pursed her lips at him.

“Don’t fucking do that. I know what you’re thinking.”

“I find that very unlikely.”

“Fuck you. You want me to talk to him.”

Sherlock, who had been rapidly folding all of this new information into John’s wing of the mind palace, seeing how salient points enhanced or explained or threw new light onto so much – _and you called him John **Sacker** , you utter idiot; make sure you do something particularly nice for him soon to make up for it _– had only just begun to come to that conclusion in the last two seconds.

“What am I supposed to say to him? ‘Hey, little bro, your princess bride tells me you’re not only a saint but a martyr, you fuckwit’?”

“Not the approach I would recommend,” said Sherlock drily, “And he’s no saint.”

“No. He’s a fucking hero.”

“Why does that make you so angry?”

“Doesn’t it make _you_ angry? Having to fucking compete with that?”

Sherlock blinked. “It’s not a _competition_.”

“Not to you, it isn’t.”

“And I’m certainly no hero.”

“Johnny would disagree with you there. He wouldn’t _say_ it, but he’d _think_ it, and fuck me if the two of you aren’t always trying to live up to each other and bloody succeeding. _Jesus_.” Harry pushed her hands through her hair – Sherlock was startled to see a gesture so reminiscent of John when he was frustrated, even though he knew he ought not be – and she thumped her hands onto the table.

“I get it,” she said, “I get that he grew up trying to look out for us, and there’s no-one left now to tell him how good he was at it. Even though that fucker stabbed Mum, and Mum and Dad both died too young, and I’m a complete fuck-up. None of that’s on him. He did his best and none of the shit that happened is on him, and he fucking thinks it is anyway. Jesus, how did my brother get to be so stupid?”

Before Sherlock could bridle at the label – he might call John an idiot sometimes, but John was very far from stupid – Harry’s face had scrunched up with unhappiness.

“He’s not stupid. I didn’t mean that. I just… how would it even help, if I told him he was brilliant? How would it make the blindest bit of difference to him?”

“I don’t know,” Sherlock confessed, “Sentiment never was my area. But perhaps if you’ve never said it, he doesn’t know that you think otherwise. Whatever his rational mind tells him, this fear that he will fail us is deep-rooted. Perhaps you’re the only one left who goes back far enough in his history to… dig up those roots.”

“Why should he even care if _I_ think he’s brilliant? You think he’s brilliant enough for the both of us.”

“I don’t know.”

Harry glared at him. Sherlock sighed.

“I don’t know why it matters what our older siblings think of us; it’s infuriating. By all measures of logic it should not make the smallest difference to how we view ourselves and our lives.” He swallowed.

Harry, damn her, laughed wryly at him. “The look on your face, though, when your starchy brother got up to play the piano at your wedding. It was like you’d been waiting all your life for him to do something nice for you.”

Sherlock scowled. Harry, on the other hand, grew thoughtful. “Okay. Yeah. I get it,” she said, “Time for big sis to step up. Tell John I’ll pick him up for a drink at 7. He’ll be home by then, won’t he?”

“Yes.”

Sherlock looked at her looking at him with a slight softening of the sardonic squint around her eyes.

“What?”

“You didn’t make a crack about me drinking.”

“You’re sober, and have been since before our wedding. Even if you go to a pub or a wine bar, you’ll have mineral water or soft drink, whatever John chooses to drink. It’s more likely you’ll go somewhere for coffee, and keep clear of temptation, as you’ve been doing for months now. A Costa or a Pret. Pret, I’d say. You like the love bar latte. A lot.”

“Yeah. It’s my new addiction.” A small laugh escaped her. “I think I see what he sees in it, now. You and all that deducing. Under the right circumstances, it can be kind of restful.” She rose. “You can buy this round,” she said, and left him sitting at the table with two cold, half-drunk cups of coffee.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> John's not entirely happy that Sherlock has been talking to Harry about things; and then John and his sister have coffee and she makes him sit down, shut up and _listen_

Sherlock didn’t even look up from the computer as John came through the door and hung his coat on the hook.

“Harry will be here for you at seven.”

He kept typing for a few moments, and then paused, fingers over the keys. He looked over his shoulder at John, standing by the coat hooks, regarding him with a frown.

“Harry?” said John.

“Yes.”

“And why is Harry coming here for me?”

“She wanted to talk with you.”

“That wouldn’t be Harry’s idea.”

“On the contrary,” said Sherlock, “She was the one who brought it up when we spoke.”

John pursed his lips and took a step towards the kitchen table where Sherlock sat.

Sherlock began to wonder if he’d made a strategic error. He examined his actions and motives, and thought not, but…

“What were you talking to Harry about?”

“You,” said Sherlock. They had promised there would be no more secrets, and therefore there were none. Sherlock swallowed.

“Not about Sacker?”

“Him, too. In relation to you, and her of course.”

“Of course.” John’s stride brought him to rest at Sherlock’s side. He looked unhappy. “I was going to tell you, you know. You didn’t have to go to Harry behind my back.”

Sherlock frowned now. “I wasn’t going behind your back. I was gathering data. And the memory clearly upsets you. I hoped, by speaking with her, to spare you the necessity of doing so, at least as far as the basic facts went.”

John sucked the inside of his cheeks, as he sometimes did when he was annoyed but considering new information that might assuage his irritation. “What about upsetting Harry?”

“I didn’t notice she was upset, particularly. Though she does have a robust way of expressing herself.”

That surprised a laugh out of John. “Robust is right. And all that without the benefit of my years in the army. She could make a staff sergeant blush.”

“She also has far too much sugar in her coffee.”

“She ladles in the sugar when she’s on the wagon,” he said, “How many did she have today?”

“Five teaspoons. She’s been cutting back.”

John snorted a laugh, and like that, the residual tension was gone. “Come on, you,” he said, holding out his hand, “I’ve got half an hour, blossom. Let’s talk before she gets here.”

Sherlock willingly rose – he was only conducting an analysis of weather patterns over the Channel for the last 20 years for a cold case, nothing that couldn’t wait – and took a seat on the sofa. John examined the situation for a moment, then rather than sit beside Sherlock, he sat straddled on Sherlock’s lap, bum back on Sherlock’s knees. It was intimate, but not _distractingly_ so.

John didn’t speak at first, choosing instead to contemplate Sherlock fondly. Sherlock rested his hands on John’s thighs and waited.

“I appreciate you wanted to spare me, sweetpea,” said John at last, “But you didn’t have to.”

Sherlock frowned, eyes narrowed, as he tried to work out which part of his strategy had been incorrect. “Perhaps not,” he said at last, “But I wanted to.”

“I know. So thank you.”

“Were you looking upon telling me as part of the healing process?” Sherlock asked, dubious.

“Not really. I’ve just been girding my loins for it all day and it feels a bit like the wind’s been taken out of my sails, that’s all. So Harry told you about Sacker showing up and stabbing our Mum.”

“And you driving him off with a hot frying pan.”

John grimaced. “Yeah.”

Sherlock rubbed his hands along John’s thighs, frowning at John’s expression. “Don’t tell me you regret what you did?”

“Not really. Sacker’s a prick. He’d stabbed my mother and given my sister a black eye, plus I was only a kid so I wasn’t in a position to do something with more finesse. It’s a miracle I stopped him at all. But I made a mess of him. Oil burns aren’t pretty.”

“There you go, doing it again,” said Sherlock sternly.

“Doing what?”

“Taking on a responsibility that isn’t yours. If he was burned, he has only himself to blame. You were _seven_ , and forced to defend your mother and sister from a grown man’s brutal attack. You didn't have to save Oliver Sacker too, even if he was considered worth it, which I very much doubt.” 

John’s mouth pulled into a self-deprecating grimace. “I didn't even know who he was. There was this crazy stranger in our house, hurting mum and Harry, calling me _son_. When he went at her with the knife I just grabbed the nearest thing, which turned out to be a hot frying pan. God, he screamed. I was absolutely terrified.”

“You were _seven_. Of course you were terrified.” Sherlock rubbed his hands along John’s legs again, soothingly.

John sighed and finally leaned forward to rest his forehead against Sherlock’s shoulder. Sherlock slid his arms around John’s waist and stroked his back. “I know the facts now,” he said, “Anything else you want to say about it, you can do in your own time. I just wanted you to know that I know.”

“I know, honeybee.”

Sherlock, rubbing his cheek alongside John’s, pressed into his neck, said: “Was that not the right thing to do, asking Harry about him?”

“It was a very _you_ thing to do,” said John, raising his head and smiling. He kissed Sherlock, who still looked concerned.

“That’s not the same thing.”

“It is when it comes to you and me,” said John, stroking Sherlock’s cheek with his thumb, “You look out for me: not just in having my back, but… everything. You look _after_ me. I think it still takes me by surprise sometimes, that there’s anybody at all to do that.”

“Oh.”

“You’re good at it.”

“Good.”

They kissed some more.

“What did Harry need to see me about, then?” asked John in due course.

“That will be her now,” said Sherlock, “You can ask her yourself.”

And that’s when they heard the doorbell.

*

Harry sat with John at the back of a Pret a Manger near Great Portland Street, and emptied five sachets of sugar into her love bar latte.

“How does he do that?” she asked.

“What?”

“Your flash husband told me today that I love these things. A lot. How did he know?

“That's my baby,” said John, smugly proud.

“No, but really, how the fuck did he know?”

John peered at her. “Are you wearing what you had on when you met him?”

Harry spread her arms to show off the simple business outfit more fully. It didn’t seem to help.

“Did you have your wallet out? Do anything else? Is that when you wrote on your hand?” He pointed at the blotches of ink that remained on her skin.

“Yeah, but that was with a company pen, so…”

“Oh,” said John after a second, “I think it was…” he gestured towards a discoloured splotch on the sleeve of her coat.

She looked at it and scowled. “How does that help?”

“He has an extraordinary sense of smell, and those love bar things are kind of distinctive. And don’t you work in a building that’s miraculously free of Pret outlets for a couple of blocks around? You’d have to go on a bit of a walk especially for one, even though there’s a café at the bottom of your building.”

“And the fact that I like them a lot?” Before John could answer, Harry noticed that the buttons of her shirt pulled a little tight, and her expression morphed into one of shocked offence. “Shit. That little bastard was saying I've put on weight.”

“He probably would have just said so,” said John.

Harry decided to find it funny. “Clara says she likes my boobs like this.”

John grimaced in not entirely mock horror. “Oh, God Harry, don't.”

“You can fucking talk, with you and that pretty git making moon eyes at each other all the time. It’s a surprise the air doesn’t turn into spontaneous confetti every time you’re in the same room. And speaking of your spring bride, he tells me you’re having some rough nights at the moment, Johnny.”

John’s eyebrows climbed up, because Sherlock hadn’t actually mentioned that portion of the conversation.

Harry waved her spoon in the air, before absently adding it to the sugar overload in her latte, “We talked about Sackershit mostly, but I wanted to know why he wasn’t asking _you_ , and blow me if the lanky bastard wasn’t practically beside himself wanting to know how to solve the Mystery of the Weird Bird Dream.”

John’s lips began to purse, and for once Harry saw the signs and tried to deflect the coming fight.

“Ignore me. You know snark is my default setting. All I mean is, he’s worried about you, John. Your husband is so worried sick about you he came to _me_ for help. I’m pretty sure that’s one of the signs of the apocalypse.”

John subsided slightly in his seat. “I’m fine,” he said, “All that crap with Milverton’s cronies just stirred me up a bit. I’ll be fine.” He flexed his hands at her, wriggling his fingers to show that everything was back to normal. “I _am_ fine.”

“That’s not what Sherlock thinks.”

“Sherlock’s being… overcautious.”

“Sherlock says – no, shut up, I’m talking, Johnny. Sherlock says he thinks you feel you failed everyone. And he’s at his wit’s end. I think… I think I’ve never seen anybody love someone else so hard, with so much of themselves, as I see how he loves you and how hard he works to take care of you. That princess boy-man thinks the sun shines out of you, Johnny, and I think he’s probably right.”

They were both so shocked by that last admission that they just stared at each other for a moment. Then Harry took a breath and ploughed on.

“The world’s complicated, isn’t it? Sherlock worries about you, you worry about him. You worry about _everyone_. But John. John, John, Johnny, my baby brother, you’ve never really been the baby. You’ve always been the grown-up. And you… you have always been my bedrock.” She was staring at him now, her jaw tight, as though this was the hardest thing she’d ever said, “And I can’t bear to think that somehow you think you’re not enough, and everything you do is not enough. So, you idiot little brother of mine, let me tell you a thing or two.”

“Harry…”

“No. Shut up. Let me say this, and don’t interrupt, because our family is utter crap at this. We are completely shite at saying this stuff, and it has to be said, because you only ever have that fucking bird dream when you’re doing it tough, Johnny. And you shouldn’t do it tough because a couple of fucking fuckmuppet douche-canoes had the gall to hurt you and make you feel like that. So you just sit the fuck down and shut the fuck up and you listen to me, because I may not be able to say it a second time.”

John, stunned, sat down and shut up and waited while Harry took a breath.

“I don’t understand how you think you let anyone down, because I don’t think you know how to do that. Do you have any idea how proud Dad was of you? Going to medical school? Him a grease monkey, and there was his smart kid going to medical school, and working all those jobs at the same time. And Mum, Jesus, she used to talk about you all the bloody time, to anyone who’d listen, about her boy being a doctor and being in the army and being so fucking amazing.”

She swallowed.

“And before you get the idea that I had a problem with that… look, I’m not saying it was easy. You were so fucking clever, and I seemed to do nothing but screw up, but that doesn’t mean… Shit, John. You worked so hard to look after all of us. After you joined up, you came home every chance you could, and you wrote to us every week and you _never_ let us down. I was proud of you too, you know. Am. I _am_ proud of you. And I know I’m a bitch and a slag to you sometimes, okay, a lot of times, and that’s my problem, not yours. I’m _proud_ of you. Nobody could have done more to look after Mum and Dad. Nobody has ever done more to look after me. It’s not your fault I’m an ungracious and ungrateful pig. And I’m that because I’m always afraid I’m not… I’m not good enough. Not for you. Not for everything you’ve done.”

John reached for her hand across the table. “Harry, don’t be ridiculous…”

“I said shut up till I’m finished.” Her tone was cross but her eyes were bright with insipient tears. She grabbed his hands. “I want you to know I’m trying to be worth it, Johnny. I’m trying to be the person that’s worth the person you are. That’s worth everything you did, and everything you sacrificed, to take care of us.”

She patted his hands nervously, afraid to grip them too hard after their recent injuries, but he clasped his hands around hers and held on tight. Tears were squeezing out of her eyes, and she was not a crier, Harry, never had been. She swallowed hard a few times and stared him in the eyes.

“You are the standard I set for everyone else in my life, John. You’re the standard to which I hold Clara, and my friends, and myself, and everyone falls short – but by god, we try. I try. You’re not perfect. I know what a little bastard you can be. I remember the fights and you pinching my toys and all that shit. And I remember you getting suspended for a fortnight for giving Barry Gregson a black eye for calling me a slut, and standing up to Auntie Katie for telling me I just needed a boyfriend to sort my perverted self out. And I remember you holding my hand at Dad’s funeral, and letting me cry and cry so Mum didn’t have to cope with it. And letting her cry on you too. And I don’t remember you letting yourself cry.

“And I remember you being in your uniform at her bedside, and she was so proud of you, Johnny, and so glad to have you for a son. She loved me, I know she did, but you were her golden boy and… you know what? I wasn’t jealous. Not once. Not one bit. You were _our_ golden boy, John. You were and you _are_. You were a cute and adorable kid, when you weren’t being a little pest. And you were a tough and brave teenager and you stood up for me and for everyone. And when I got the news some bastard had shot you, I wanted to go to Afghanistan and beat the living crap out of anyone who would dare to hurt you. My little brother. My bedrock. My Johnny. When those bastards hurt your hands… Jesus, John. _Jesus_ , what they did to you. I’d have torn them apart, if you hadn’t done it first. I sent a bloody bouquet to that copper who chucked one of those shits out of the window. How _dare_ they hurt you?”

She lifted their joined hands gingerly, as though she would refresh the pain of his wounds if she wasn’t careful, so he squeezed her hands with his. “I’m okay, Harry.”

Harry sniffed and wiped her eyes ineffectually on her shoulder. She sniffed again, trying to regain a semblance of calmness.

“I’m sorry I’ve always been such a shit to you. I know it’s crap. I just… I just knew… how I failed you all the time and couldn’t bear it. But now I’m working hard, Johnny. I’m going to be the person I know I can be. Because we have the same Mum and Dad, and I’m not talking about that Sackershit prick either. I don’t care what DNA we’ve got. Your genes are my genes, and you’re nothing like that arsehole, so I don’t have to be, either. I can be a better person, and you’re the best person I know. _You are_ ,” she asserted when his expression seemed he was about to demur, “So don’t you dare feel you’ve failed, in anything, ever. Life just throws brick after brick at you and goddamn you, John Hamish Watson, but you manage to catch those bricks and build _houses_ with them. You build safe places for people. Look what you’ve done for that husband of yours.”

Finally, she crumbled, and the table between them was a barrier she couldn’t stand a moment longer. John looked like he couldn’t stand it either, and he was standing as she was standing, and the next minute, in the back of the Pret, they were hugging each other, ferociously, like they hadn’t done since they were kids.

Harry clung to him, and John clung to her – he pressed his face into her neck and she could feel his tears, and he wasn’t a crier either. Her baby brother who was always strong for everyone else, and who, it turned out, always feared he wasn’t doing more. What an idiot. What a wonderful, dickheaded moron.

Her brother – the doctor and war hero and fucking _solver of crimes_ – was, right now, just her baby brother again. Her tiny brother Johnny, who had hung onto her and sobbed his little heart out when he’d fallen off his tricycle and cut his knee. Who’d clung to her and whispered excited secrets about his first day at school. Who had sprawled on the floor beside her bed and confessed that he was going to join the army to pay for medical school and look after them all.

“Harry. God. I…Thank you. I… I...”

“You’re a numpty, you know that?”

“Apparently.” They both laughed, a bit wetly, and finally drew back from the embrace.

“You fucking numpty,” said Harry, “You have never failed anyone in your life, Johnny. Not once. I don’t think you know how to. But don’t you go getting the idea that makes you perfect.” She tapped him on the chest to make her point, bringing them both back from the raw edge of unaccustomed emotion. “You’re stubborn and you have the foulest temper when you’re ill and you keep things bottled up too much, and seriously, little brother, you have the dress sense of a woodwork teacher. You should let that princess husband of yours dress you up. He’d put garlands in your hair and probably a tiara if he thought you’d wear it.”

John laughed and Harry grinned. “And you’d fucking let him,” she accused.

“Not a tiara,” he protested. “I draw the line at rhinestones.”

“But you’re totally up for a garland. Don’t deny it. You wouldn’t fool a nun.”

By mutual agreement, they decided to abandon the Pret, though John insisted on picking up an almond croissant for his husband. Harry bought nut bars for home and a muffin covered in seeds and oats. “For the birds,” she insisted.

Their path back to Baker Street crossed the southern tip of Regent’s Park, and they cut through Park Square West, where a few sparrows, pigeons, and a stray duck were the beneficiaries of the muffin. Well, they were until Harry threw a pinch of sunflower seeds at John, then John swiftly grabbed a retaliatory pinch of muffin topping and dropped it down her blouse, and then she tried to mash the rest of the muffin into his neck, and they ended up half wrestling and giggling like lunatics, like they hadn’t done in forever. Some passing pedestrian gave them an indulgent grin and John and Harry pointed at each other, a marginally adult version of their ‘It’s his/her fault’ poses first struck when John was five years old.

It took them a few moments to shake crumbs out of unexpected places after that.

While straightening his collar, John asked his sister, “Did you tell Sherlock about that thing Mum used to do? With the song and the…”

“Rubbing your little tummy? Might have let it slip.” Harry grinned wickedly at him. “Did your pretty punkin pie make your little sad tummy feel all better again?”

“What if he did? What? My hands were all smashed up, fuck off…”

Then Harry’s face lost its teasing smirk and she became briefly solemn again. “Good. He looks after you and he bloody should. You’re the best thing that ever happened to that lanky twat.”

“He’s the best thing that ever happened to me, too.”

Harry said nothing to that, but once she’d flicked enough crumbs from her cleavage she smirked at him. “How about you get a free pass to tell Clara something embarrassing about me as a kid,” she declared with grand magnanimity.  

“Like how you used to dress one Sindy doll up like an Arabian sheik in hankies and cut-offs from Mum’s sewing room and the other in a swimsuit and ride away with her on Sindy’s pony to the sandpit and make kissy noises?” John puckered up and imitated the noises in question.

“Twat,” said Harry in fond mock-annoyance.

“Do you remember how told me you were going to do that with a girl one day, and have a wedding catered with Alpine cherryade, arctic roll and jelly beans? But not the black ones.”

Harry laughed. “I used to make you eat all the black ones.”

“Yeah, I still do that. Sherlock hates liquorice.”

“You poor martyr.”

“I do all right. I like aniseed. The rest just taste like sugar. I think you'll find I won that round!”

“If I could be bothered I’d argue that was cheating, you little shit.”

“I win again,”

“Prick.”

“But a winning prick.”

“God, I wish Princess Sherlock joy of you.”

“Ta.”

They parted company at a tube station with a hug. Harry ruffled John’s hair in just the way he’d found annoying since he was two years old, and then stuffed her hands in her coat pockets.

“I'm going to do better, John,” she promised him, “I won't ever be you. I don't really want to be. But I'm going to be a better _me_.”

John smiled at her. “You already are. Give my love to Clara.”

“Will do. And give my best to Sherlock. Pull his pigtail for me or something.”

Then she was off, and John walked on home to Baker Street.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> John gets home to find Sherlock has had an eventful evening. They debrief, John gets a footrub, other things are rubbed, and a case gets solved - and now, perhaps, they've broken the cycle, and John's subconscious mind will finally see that he is - as Harry and Sherlock both think - _brilliant._

John did not expect to encounter the tall huffy woman and her short, furious girlfriend on their way out of Baker Street, but that brief muddle on the footpath as they bowled out just as he was trying to open the door cast light on Sherlock’s initial refusal to face him as he got home.

“Let me _see_ ,” John said with just the right combination of firmness and worry to make Sherlock sigh and turn. His left cheek was flushed with colour in the shape of a handprint. Scowling, John took his husband’s jaw carefully in his fingertips and turned Sherlock’s face towards the light so he could see it better. “Want to explain?” he asked, “Or should I chase those women down and ask them to?”

“For god’s sake, no,” said Sherlock, recoiling slightly at the idea, “They’re not stepping foot back in this flat.”

“No, I got that impression as they left.” John stood up on the balls of his feet to kiss the poor reddened cheek. “Tea?”

“Yes,” said Sherlock, “And lock the door in case they try to come back.”

“Now you’re going to have to explain,” John laughed as he pushed the latch and went to the kitchen to put on the kettle.

“Long or short version?”

“Short.”

“I pre-empted a surprise and they didn’t like it.”

“And… the long?”

“The short one got here first and wanted me to determine whether her girlfriend was having an affair. Before I could finish telling her I would rather chew off my own fingers and write limericks with the stumps than investigate infidelity, the tall one showed up to confront her about the meaning of trust. A fight ensued. I was caught in the crossfire trying to get them out the door.”

“Is she having an affair?” John had placed the almond croissant – only slightly squashed from being in his pocket – on a plate.

Sherlock leaned over to steal a few flakes of almond from the pastry. “She was having a series of artistically nude photographs taken for their anniversary.”

“Is that the surprise you pre-empted?”

“No. I also pointed out the short one planned to propose, assuming the tall one wasn’t screwing around.”

“Which one of them slapped you?”

“The short one. While I was ducking the tall one.”

“That’s assault, you know,” said John, pouring hot water into the cups, “I’m going to send them a warning with their bill.” He was only half joking.

“You can’t. I didn’t bother to get their details.”

“Right.”

“Dull, John.”

“And yet so vigorous. Here.” While the tea was brewing, he tugged Sherlock against him. Sherlock turned his face to better present the site of his recent abuse and John kissed his cheek again, very softly, several times.

“My poor buzz,” he murmured, kissing along Sherlock’s cheekbone to the corner of his eye, then down over his cheek again, which was pink now mostly with the heightened pleasure of his husband’s gentle attention. “Sweetpea,” John murmured before the next kiss, “Honeybee. Sweet petal. Little bug. My firefly.”

“Hmmm.” Sherlock turned so that his lips met John’s on the next kiss, and they filled the time until the tea was ready with kissing.

They retired to the sofa with tea and the croissant, where John kicked off his shoes and Sherlock proceeded to devour the pastry. He paused occasionally to pop a morsel into John’s mouth as John sat with his feet in Sherlock’s lap.

“It went well with Harry, then?”

“Yeah. Yeah, really good.”

“Good.”

“You didn’t tell her to say all that stuff, did you?”

“And what are the odds, do you think, that I could ever convince your sister to say a damned thing she didn’t want to say?”

“Approximately nil.” John grinned.

“Exactly nil. Is she still calling me princess behind my back?”

“To your face as well, I expect.”

“Yes, there is that.”

John sighed and wriggled his feet. Having finished his croissant, Sherlock took the hint and wrapped his hands around one socked foot and rubbed his thumbs into the arch. John made a disgraceful noise of pleasure. Sherlock rubbed the arch some more and watched John become a boneless puddle on the sofa.

“She… said good stuff, then, did she?”

“Like you don’t know,” said John in a dozy tone, eyes closed.

“So now you know that I’m not the only one who thinks you’re brilliant.”

John opened one eye to watch Sherlock studying John’s left foot as he massaged it. “You know,” he said after a minute, “Harry’s never said anything like that to me before. Too much baggage, I guess. I got the impression tonight that she’s always been scared she’s like Sacker.”

Sherlock looked up at him then.

“I suppose,” said John carefully, “That it has worried me too, on occasion.”

“Nature plays its part,” said Sherlock, just as carefully, “But his are not the only genes you carry, and nurture is just as important. Even if you carried similar predispositions, your life has tempered them in completely different ways. You are nothing like Oliver Sacker, John. If I had to guess – which I never do – I would say that you are much more like your mother and the man who raised you. Further, I would say you are uniquely yourself.”

John wriggled his right foot, and Sherlock transferred his ministrations. As his fingers dug into the arch, John groaned in pleasure again. For a few moments, silence reigned as Sherlock massaged this foot too. Then he tugged John’s socks off and rubbed his thumbs over John’s bare feet.

“You’re thinking something,” said John, eyes still closed.

“I’m always thinking something, John, unlike you, who can occasionally think of nothing at all.”

“Not true. I’m currently thinking how nice it is when you rub my feet.”

“I’m not sure that counts as a thought.”

“Plus, you’re deflecting. What is it you’re thinking but not saying?”

Sherlock pushed his fingers between the toes of John’s left foot, to make John giggle and wriggle his toes.

“That’s lovely, bumble, but I still want to know.”

Sherlock sighed. “I am considering a coincidence and wondering if there is in fact a more causal connection.”

John cracked an eye open again.

“Oliver Sacker. Ollie Miller, your friend. I’m trying to determine if the coincidence of the names added to your trauma.”

John blinked at him. “I’ve never thought of that. I don’t think so. I don’t think of Sacker as Oliver. Ollie was not at all like my father.”

“Both of them were men who you should have been able to rely on for protection. They both… hurt you.”

John frowned. “I don’t know. Maybe. But Sacker was a drunken, lazy, violent wastrel, and Ollie was a good man in a horrible situation.”

“ _You’re_ a good man,” Sherlock asserted, “And Sacker was not worth a fraction of any of you – your friend, your parents, Harry or you.” 

“Damn right,” said John, then grinned, “Total fucking douche-canoe.”

Sherlock’s eyebrow climbed.

“One of Harry’s,” said John.

Sherlock lifted John’s right foot up and kissed the top of it, then the other. He glanced up to see John gazing at him intensely.

“Honeybee,” said John, “Do you know what I’d like to do, if you’re okay with it?”

“Tell me,” said Sherlock, although he knew.

“Will you come to bed with me, and talk to me while I… ah… while I…”

“While you masturbate?” Sherlock ended the sentence for him.

John smiled. “While I do that. Yeah. Is that all right?”

“Certainly.” Sherlock rested his hand over the swelling in John’s trousers, palming the growing bulge. “I can do better for you than that.”

John watched his husband gently squeeze him and moaned, almost as disgracefully as he did when having his feet massaged. “God. Sweetheart. That’s feels good.”

“Good,” said Sherlock, now massaging John’s cock through his clothes, “I want you to feel good. I want you to know that you’re brilliant.”

“ _That’s_ brilliant. God. Sherlock. Baby.”

“Bed,” said Sherlock. He had popped John’s button and pulled the zip down as well, then stopped to pat John’s thigh. “We’ll be more comfortable there.”

Grinning, John got to his feet. Sherlock rose beside him and took his hand to lead him to the bedroom.

Within minutes, John was stretched out, naked, in their bed while Sherlock, stripped down to his pants, stretched alongside him. Sherlock’s body half covered John; he had one leg hooked over John’s; and he was kissing and nuzzling John’s face and throat and chest. The arm supporting his weight was curved on the pillow above John’s head so his long fingers could play with strands of John’s hair, or with the upper curve of his ear.

Sherlock’s other hand strayed over John’s legs and hips and stomach, returned always to card fingers through the thatch of blond curls between his legs, to cup and fondle John’s balls, then up to push and rub and stroke John’s achingly hard cock.

John held himself still, except to return the kisses Sherlock regularly pressed to his lips, twining their tongues when possible, and panting pleasure and sweet names while Sherlock’s mouth was busy elsewhere on his skin.

“Oh, sweetheart,” murmured John, “God, yes, oh yes, that feels good, baby, sweetpea, my… aaaah…”

Sherlock had wrapped his hand firmly around John’s shaft, slick now with John’s pre-come.

“Baby…”

Sherlock kissed him, then tucked his nose and mouth by John’s ear as he rubbed and pulled on John’s cock.

“You are brilliant,” Sherlock said to him, “You are beautiful. I love the feel of your skin on mine. I love doing this with you. I love you. I believe in you, John Watson. You are extraordinary. I want you to come with my hand on you. I want you to move…”

John’s began to thrust into the curl of Sherlock’s fingers, and he gasped and whimpered as he did so. “God. Baby. Sweetheart. H-h-h-honey-b-b-“

“Oh, John, yes. Yes, John. I love how you feel beneath me. Please. Let me make you come. Let me, John. My John. My beautiful John. You feel so good. Your cock feels so good in my hand. Come for me, John…”

John cried out as he came, his cock pulsing in Sherlock’s hand, making a sticky mess between them as Sherlock kissed his neck, and then, as he subsided from the orgasm, his mouth. John tilted his head up, chasing Sherlock’s lips, and Sherlock tugged John’s body close so they could kiss more deeply, for longer.

Eventually, when John was all dopy-dazed-drowsy and softly smiling, Sherlock reached to the bedside table for wipes to clean them up, then Sherlock pulled the sheets and blankets over them.

“Honeybumble,” mumbled John, cuddling close, “Love you, too.”

Sherlock held John close as John slipped into a contented nap. He’d be awake again shortly, wanting a shower and something to eat. In the meantime, Sherlock took tender pleasure in holding his dozing husband.

In due course, John woke again, stretching out like a particularly indulged and happy cat, before blowing a raspberry on Sherlock’s unsuspecting belly and racing him to the bathroom. They showered and ate. John took over the Channel spreadsheet for the cold case, marking dates and shipping reports, while Sherlock paced around the room and talked the data through aloud. He’d solved it by midnight, shot off an email to Lestrade and turned to find John leaning on the wall, arms crossed, smiling at some private joke as he gazed at Sherlock’s hair.

“Yes?” he asked.

“I was just thinking what you’d look like in a garland. A flower crown. You know.” He waved his fingers roughly around his own forehead. “Daisies, maybe.”

“Daisies for you,” Sherlock asserted, “Miniature white roses for me.”

John laughed. “You _have_ thought about it.”

“Not really,” lied Sherlock. He’d considered and discarded a number of ideas for their wedding; that was only one, and only because he’d got a bit feverishly overwhelmed while looking online for the perfect buttonhole arrangement. He wondered what Harry had said to trigger the comment. Whatever it had been was making John grin with impish delight, so he supposed he’d have to forgive the transgression.

They went back to bed and John, languid with contentment, fell quickly back to sleep.

That night was the first in many weeks that John didn’t stir with the bird nightmare. It didn’t come back the following night, or the night after, though it did return from time to time, with diminishing intensity and regularity, like the rest of John’s worst dreams.

That night, though, Sherlock lay awake with John in his arms, listening, feeling with his whole body, for any sign of the return of the dream. He thought perhaps they’d broken the cycle tonight, but he intended to stay awake to monitor the situation.

Calling Harry had been the correct strategy after all. It wouldn’t solve everything, of course, but John had come home relaxed and at peace in a way he hadn’t been for weeks, now. And now Sherlock had a more solid framework for understanding. It wasn’t his way to feel useless sorrow for a past that was beyond changing; nevertheless, Sherlock wished he could find a path to the little boy he’d heard crying at night in the grown man beside him, to reassure him that all would one day be well.

Perhaps, Sherlock thought, he could. He snuggled John close against him and bent his head to sing that song of comfort, whisper-soft, against John’s ear. “ _With your love light shining clearly, it’s so good to have you near me, so hold me close, don’t let me go_.”

John made a small, sweet grunt of satisfaction and settled closer in, and dreamed only pleasant dreams.

 

 


End file.
